Ice Cream and Ultimatums
by BadOldWestern
Summary: She learned through ultimatums. Heaven or hell. Right or wrong. Yes or no. Black or white. Straight or curved. Vanilla or chocolate. As a little girl she knew what she must do, what she could do; and what she mustn't and couldn't do. Warning-a few swears


Certain kids prefer chocolate ice cream. Or rocky road. Or fudge swirl.

Quinn Fabray's personal favorite was strawberry. Simple, sweet, uncomplicated, neutral. Nice.

But she was always the one to choose vanilla during a tame "coke or Pepsi" game, before Santana veered the questions into darker tones. Darker, forbidden tones.

She never questioned why she just said "Vanilla." Maybe it was easier to like one side stay with the neutral one.

Quinn liked simplicity, the equation with no outlier, a Spanish conjugation laid out in an easy chart; yo soy, tu eres, etc. A boy with one thing on his mind.

She learned through ultimatums. Heaven or hell. Right or wrong. Yes or no. Black or white. Straight or curved. Straight or gay. Vanilla or chocolate. As a little girl she knew what she must do, what she could do; and what she mustn't and couldn't do.

High school blurred those lines. Santana and Brittany's endless conquests, leading up to each other where mind-boggling. How they could go from the harlots under the bleachers to the angels on the top of the pyramids was beyond Quinn's comprehension. Instead of black or white, McKinley's school colors stood for the right or wrong, red or white. But morality swirled into that taunting shade of pink.

There she was, the chastity princess, captain of the cheerleaders, but she knew she was a fraud. Once sliding her boyfriend's hands away from her butt, she could feel his erection. How pure could she be if she only provoked those feelings from him? She wasn't a whore if she pushed him away at the last minute, turned away, avoided responsibility.

Yet she was told once, it was more than just a hookup.

The sinner who wanted to redeem himself for her. She felt that temptation, she blamed the fact that she was drunk and her mind wasn't in the right place, but in the end, it was temptation. She said yes.

One of her Sunday school teachers told her Eve was punished from temptation because she was too weak to resist. But Adam said it was alright. He could have stopped her. He did just as much as she. Yet she received the blame.

Eve was weak. Or she was strong. There was no gray area, no one wanted to toss this idea around. McKinley colors would not bend into the pink area for her.

She was pregnant. That was a _could_; if she was older. She _could_ have a baby, but she _must_ be married and have a life of her won. She _must_ _not_ have sex before this time. She _could not_ get pregnant with a bastard child.

If she aborted, she could go back to her old life. Reincarnated as the virginal queen of her chastity ball. But somehow, the sin would still be there. She'd just have a better time hiding it.

If she kept it, her sin would be known, bulging from under the hem of her t-shirt. Everyone would know what she did, her mistake. But it was the right thing to do.

Ultimatum's were a bitch, but when she was given her options, she was frightened by all the wrong turns she saw she could take.

Like Cinderella, the clock struck midnight on her chastity ball and she had to go running home before she was reduced to rags. She didn't have a fairy godmother. She had to build her reputation back up without magic or mice.

That mess was over. The gray (or pink, whatever) area gave her the leniency she never experienced with her ultimatums, she _could_ go back to her old life, but she _must_ be perfect.

She had to clean the slate with bleach, scrubbing until every past mark was a distant memory or you had to squint really hard to see it, like a stain that wasn't completely taken care of so you could see the blotch, but all it took was something else marring the fabric to make it invisible. Rumors were spread about Santana fucking her math teacher. Sam asked her out. Rachel and Finn broke up. They forgot about the baby.

Sam was vanilla ice cream. He was sweet and basic and pure. He offered her a promise ring; he was offering that they _could_ have sex but the _must _be married.

She was touched by the gesture, but her stomach churned at the ultimatum. She couldn't have sex with him if they weren't married, ever? She was tired of the all or nothing attitude, black and white, red and white, Jesus, she didn't care anymore. She missed pink. She craved strawberry ice cream, cool and sweet, but tangy and flavorful. It was a middle ground, a little bit of everything.

She had her ice cream, and she ate it too, once. Quarterback boyfriend, cute, sweet, and clueless. She wore his letter jacket on dates where it was chilly, kissed without tongue, held hands. He was genuine and kind. And she slept with his best friend.

But he was able to forgive. He could meet her at the middle ground, asking a little bit from her but giving to her too. No "all or nothing". She just had to meet him halfway.

At glee practice, she smiled at him from over her boyfriends shoulder during their good-bye hug. He'd be hers, if she'd be his, back to homecoming dates and hand-holding and a shy kiss or two in his car when he dropped her off after movie date. He wasn't a reformed sinner looking for an easy target; he wasn't a blonde with abstinence completely on the agenda. He was mushed in the middle, so sweet and so simple. Just like she wanted.

"Finn, what's your favorite flavor?" she asked him suddenly, breaking a kiss in his mom's car they borrowed to go to a movie.

He smirked at her, in a dangerous, almost dirty way. She felt herself blush, even in the dark of the car. She wasn't worried if it was too fast or bored because it was too slow. Goldilocks thought strawberry ice cream was just right.

"Depends on the day. What's yours?"

"Strawberry." She said without hesitation. She never questioned that she liked strawberry. She just wondered why she never thought about why she never said she liked it.

He smiled his crooked smile.

"I love strawberry ice cream." He said definitively, kissing her again.


End file.
